Faith&Spirit
One
person who has impacted my faith: His
name is Karl Suhr. As the now-retired pastor of St. Matthew Lutheran
Church in Atlanta, Ga., he and his wife Anne welcomed me and my wife
Liz with open arms back in 1995. As I watched him gently, but firmly,
minister to his parishioners, faithfully proclaim the Word of God
from the pulpit, administer the sacraments, and carry out his other
pastoral duties over the next year-and-a-half, I became even more
convinced that I had rightly heard God's call. When I entered
seminary in the summer of 1996 I did so fully persuaded that I was
doing the right thing.
Where
I find evidence of the sacred: It
may sound trite, but I find evidence of the sacred in just about
every area of life. Something as majestic as a mountain storm at
5,000 feet, or as mundane as the pet dog stretched out peacefully
across the bed, may become an occasion for experiencing the sacred.
But nowhere do I find evidence of the sacred more than in worship. I
never cease to be amazed that the Holy One would make himself
available to us ordinary folk who gather—oftentimes not very
faithfully!—on Sundays.
A
writer who has influenced me: A
writer who has influenced me: Over the years such authors as Os
Guinness, Evelyn Underhill, C. S. Lewis, J. I. Packer, Carl Braaten,
Thomas Merton, Eugene Peterson, Phillip Yancey, Robert Farrar Capon,
Kathleen Norris, G. K. Chesterton, Thomas Oden, and Charles Colson
have played a part in my spiritual development. One author that I
read 10 or 12 years ago changed the way I understood the Christian
faith. His name is Gerhard Forde. He wrote a little book in 1972
entitled "Where God Meets Man."
Out
of all the wonders of the world, I am most amazed by: Out
of all the wonders of the world I am most amazed by: Death, because
it is so utterly shrouded in mystery, and because we try so very hard
to avert it. But it comes to us all any way, doesn't it?
A
balanced life looks like: To
talk about a balanced life is to miss the point. Buddhists and
Taoists are concerned about "balance." Christians are not.
The point, as Jesus has said, is to love God with everything we've
got, and to love our fellow human beings as ourselves. If we
concentrate on these two things then we'll be balanced enough.
What
my faith costs me: It's
cost me a life of indifference and complacency. Because of God's
love for humanity revealed in Jesus' death and resurrection, I no
longer have the luxury of not feeling any obligation to my family, to
my neighbor, to my church, to my country, and to the world. Most of
us know John 3:16. We've seen the guy with the multi-colored hair in
the stands at sports events holding the sign—to what end I have
yet to figure out. But when we take the time to read that verse,
we're struck, not by what our faith costs us, but by what it cost God
for us to have a "faith" at all.
